project communication strategy case study

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• v.6(8); 2020 Aug

Analysis of factors affecting project communications with a hybrid DEMATEL-ISM approach (A case study in Iran)

Hedieh shakeri.

a Department of Industrial Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Mohammad Khalilzadeh

b CENTRUM Católica Graduate Business School, Lima, Peru

c Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru

One of the main factors in the success of projects is communications management and proper and timely distribution of information among all internal and external project stakeholders. Despite of emphasizing on the importance of project communications in the literature, there are few studies identifying factors influencing project communications. This research aims to address this shortcoming by identifying and determining sequences and relationships factors affecting project communications and their clustering. The informed communication strategy allows managers to structure the information flow in a better and more controlled manner and to avoid the costs caused by lack of effective and timely communication. The present study is conducted to help clarify the views of the organization's managers and project managers on project communications, and to identify factors affecting it and how they effectively communicate to successfully accomplish the projects. First a number of factors influencing project communications are identified on the basis of previous studies and interviews with experts and project managers working in oil, gas and power plant construction megaprojects in Iran. Then, these factors are analyzed by using the combination of fuzzy DEMATEL and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) techniques. The relationships and sequence between the indicators are determined so that it can be effective in project communications planning and project success through providing an insight for senior managers and project managers.

Project management; Communications management; Fuzzy DEMATEL; Interpretive structural modeling (ISM); MICMAC Analysis; Construction engineering; Human resource management; Industry management; Business management; Behavioral psychology; Business

1. Introduction

Communications is a process whereby concepts are exchanged among individuals through a system of generic signs and words. Project communications management defines necessary processes for ensuring proper and timely production, collection, dissemination and distribution of project information ( Senaratne and Ruwanpura, 2016 ). Communication plays a role throughout the life cycle of a project and has a great contribution to its success ( El-Saboni et al., 2009 ). The greater the number of people in the project team and its stakeholders, the more important the project communications management will be. Project managers use a variety of tools to establish communication and coordination among project team members; this diversity and multiplicity of tools affects proper and timely dissemination of project information. Research has shown that because of the mistakes made in communication by the employees and the stakeholders, large amounts of money are imposed on organizations that will reduce the efficiency of project team members.

Project management is highly important within organizations that guide their business with a project-based approach. So far, many studies have been conducted on project success in which communications management is basically on top of the list. Though communication planning in project teams is one of the basic tasks of project managers, there are few studies on the accurate measurement of the communication process and its elements ( Dziekoński, 2017 ; Muszyńska, 2018 ).

Despite of great knowledge and experience about project communications management, it has not been adequately addressed in its various dimensions. Applying the comments and views of the active experts in this field can be effective in forming and operating the project communications. As Dziekoński (2017) recommend that future research should identify the components of communication and its impact on communication process. Therefore, it is essential to provide a comprehensive model for identifying and clustering effective and influenced factors. In this study, our goal is to identify the factors affecting project communications with the help of library studies and interviewing experts in order to better plan the communications by considering the sequences and relationships between the identified elements and their more appropriate understanding, according to a Fuzzy Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory technique (FDEMATEL)- Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) approach. Both ISM and fuzzy DEMATEL are appropriate for analyzing sophisticated problems with hierarchical and communicative structure. ISM divides the factors into different clusters, and fuzzy DEMATEL examines cause-effect relationship. ISM is used for analyzing the sophisticated systems and has a holistic approach, while DEMATEL is applied in determining direct and indirect relationships and has a part-based approach.

The scope of the research is Iranian power plant, oil and gas industries. The statistical population consists of project managers who work in this industry and are familiar with the subject. They were selected through non-random purposeful method, with a requirement of experience and expertise for more than 10 years. A total of 28 project managers working in this area were selected as the sample.

A paired comparison questionnaire was used for data collection. The respondents' views were collected through verbal expressions. After the questionnaire was completed by the experts, for calculation purpose, linguistic variables (verbal expressions) were converted to triangular fuzzy numbers. Validity of the questionnaire with content analysis approach and face validity was confirmed. Also, its reliability was examined through calculating the inconsistency rate and since the inconsistency rate measured to be 0.0392 which is less than 5%, the response matrix has a good inconsistency. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the second part of the paper, the research background on communications management and the factors affecting it are investigated. Third part (Materials and Methods) explains reliability, the composition of fuzzy DEMATEL and ISM, and MICMAC analysis. In the fourth part, Results & Discussion, and in the fifth part, conclusion and future recommendations are presented.

2. Literature review

2.1. project success.

In a report in 2000, PA Consultation Group announced that 70% of organizations continue to fail in delivering their projects ( De Mascia, 2012 ). These figures were very unfortunate, so many researchers conducted many studies on the causes of success and failure of the projects. For example ( Hyväri, 2007 ), stated that experience of project managers in managing changes as well as their ability to communicate is very crucial in the success of any project.

De Wit (1988) separated the success of the project from the success in the project management, stating that the project success is related to the goals and benefits that a project creates for its organization, while the success in the project management is associated with direct action of project manager in controlling the range, critical times (deadlines) and costs of each project. And this case was also examined by Cooke-Davies (2002) ; Musawir et al. (2017) .

Previous studies show that communication is an important factor for the success of projects ( Anantatmula, 2015 ). In their study, Yap et al. (2017) acknowledged that effective communication is an important aspect of project-based management that is considered as an essential prerequisite for successful project management. With this in mind, effective communication to control the time and cost of a project is very important. Team factors, technical factors, organizational factors, and environmental factors are four variables that can be described as indicators of improving the performance of projects through effective communication channels between project stakeholders. Important factors for project success are communication, team factors, technical factors, organizational factors, and environmental factors ( Maqbool, 2018 ).

2.2. Project communications

Project Communications Management includes activities that facilitate the creation, distribution, receipt, validation and understanding of information ( Senaratne and Ruwanpura, 2016 ). PMI (2017) has recognized as one of the main fields of knowledge of the scientific management of the project. Communications management is a path to individual and organizational learning, as well as to building trust and shared work values ( Senge, 2006 ). Communications management is one of the most significant and complicated elements of project management, which is affected by a variety of factors including: cultural differences, trust, communication support tools, IT infrastructure, geographic distance, time interval, stakeholders, monitoring, measurement and analysis, planning, continuous improvement, models and policies, and curriculum ( Muszyńska, 2018 ). An effective communications management plan creates a culture of collaboration in a converging project team ( Livesey, 2016 ). Effective communications management creates a common culture that promotes coherence in a project team and also promotes participation in decision-making ( Anantatmula, 2015 ).

Team knowledge and its coherence are strengthened through effective communication ( Liu and Cross, 2016 ). Poor communication between the members of the project team is one of the main reasons behind the increase in project costs ( Ceric, 2014 ; Mahamid, 2016 ). Weak communication is one of the most common risks of the project ( Cerić, 2003 ).

In their study, Liu and Cross (2016) stated that communication plays a vital role in improving the effectiveness of a project. The authors also emphasized on effective internal and external communication.

2.3. Factors affecting project communications

2.3.1. leadership.

Campbell (2011) says: “good communication and strong leadership move hand in hand.” Studies on leadership styles indicate that leader's personality, maturity of the followers and environmental requirements determine leadership style. An efficient leader will be able to implement one or a combination of leadership styles that fit the environment. Each style may be effective at its own time and place. The style of communicating will vary from one leader to another and from one project to another; however, the issue of communicating remains the inherent part of leadership. Choosing the most effective leadership style for different situations requires the ability to correctly assess the situation and apply the appropriate style to communicate effectively ( Zulch, 2014 ). “Leadership styles that promote upward and downward communication, have been shown to foster a plethora of positive outcomes within the workplace, group collaborations, and team contexts” ( Kelly and MacDonald, 2019 ).

In teams with a participative leadership structure, team members may need to communicate with each other ( Bergman et al., 2014 ). More repeated leader communication leads to raise leader-team relationship development, greater levels of information swapping ( Henderson et al., 2016 ).

Type of leadership style by the project manager creates a successful and effective communication ( Zulch, 2014 ). Stevenson and Starkweather (2010) confirm that leadership and communications are “extremely important” indicators for the successful completion of the project. Heldman (2011) says, “The better the project manager communicates, the project will proceed better and easier.” This confirms the importance of communication. Leaders guide teams through communication. Good communication skills create the understanding and trust needed to encourage others to follow the leader.

The difference between leadership as a skill to communicate and communicating as a leadership skill is defined as follows:

• - Leadership as a skill to communicate: Steyn (2012) refers to leadership as doing things and tasks by others (project team). Leadership involves delegating, coordinating and communicating at all levels ( Walt et al., 1996 ). Therefore, leadership is a skill to communicate.
• - Communicating as a leadership skill: A leader must be sure that he will implement strategy resources and the decisions, and s(he) should necessarily have strong communication skills. This skill is an integral part of leadership skills.

Clutterbuck and Hirst (2002) said that “leaders who do not communicate well are not really guides and leaders.”

2.3.2. Trust

The first challenge for a project manager is to build trust among team members. The second challenge is to maintain the established trust so that it will not be lost. The behavior of team members directly affects the level of trust in interpersonal relationships ( Decker, 2015 ) and since the project manager cannot communicate with all team members face-to-face, trust will be a major factor ( Daim et al., 2012 ). Hakanen and Soudunsaari (2012) state that trust is a very important part of team building, just like team performance. In the absence of trust, team members are not interested in talking about what they have in mind, putting forward their ideas, being volunteer to express their opinions, or even asking questions. Team members hide their true feelings and are not interested in helping each other. Most studies have emphasized the need for “trust” among members to enhance communication. One of these reasons is different cultural background among team members that leads to effective communication ( Dreesen et al., 2016 ). Social relationships heavily influence the effectiveness of communication. Trust creates a strong relationship, and knowledge and communication have a great influence on social capital of the team ( Furnell and Scott, 2014 ). Brewer and Strahorn (2012) say that when you think about the human aspect of project management, trust is recognized as the most important indicator of the success of the project. Without trust, it's almost impossible to create coherent processes in the project environment. Roudias (2015) states that, “the ability to build trust in project team and other stakeholders is a very important part in the effective leadership of the team.” Trust is accompanied with collaboration, information sharing, and effective resolution of issues. Without trust, it is difficult to establish a positive and necessary relationship between the various stakeholders involved in the project. Trust is a psychological concept or expression that has a subjective (non-objective) nature. The capability to build and maintain it is an interpersonal skill that can be promoted over time by communicating with others. Newman et al. (2019) say “trust plays a significant role as a moderator to leader communication with teams in affecting team performance”. Through trust, communication teams can share more information and cover the potential knowledge gaps within project teams where communication is weak ( Pullin, 2010 ). To promote trust and build strong relationships, methods like these are suggested: 1. daily and monthly standup meetings, 2. continuous communication (especially tools that can be a good alternative to face-to-face contacts, such as conference calls), and 3. social networks (especially tools that include conference techniques) ( Dreesen et al., 2016 ). Trust has huge potential impacts on project management performance. These include: a better relationship, reduced sales time, reduced outsourcing risks and thus reduced project costs as well as effective However, as the researchers have argued, what makes trust worth discovering is actually communication itself. Because communication failures are not all but the biggest contributors to project failure. The set of actions that build stakeholder confidence must occur at the beginning of the project because they have shown to be effective in the project ( Strahorn et al., 2017 ) The three types of trust (intuition, integrity and competence) associated with stakeholder management are effective and significant. Therefore, it is important that the project manager considers actions such as empathy in communications from project initiation ( Francisco de Oliveira and Rabechini, 2019 ).

2.3.3. Stakeholders

People in organizations need information and instructions. Establishing communication is considered the “highway” of projects, since it establishes a link between the management, customers, project team members, and other stakeholders. This “highway” focuses on who needs what information in what format and when ( Pheng, 2018 ). Managing project stakeholders is an important part of project management. Aligning the goals, interests, and expectations of stakeholders is directly attributed to the success of the project ( Aaltonen, 2011 ) Creating and maintaining relationships between project team members and different stakeholders through effective communication is one of the requirements of successful project management ( Hysa and Spalek, 2019 ). The objective of project stakeholder management is to enhance the understanding of the project management team from various stakeholders and their ability in engaging stakeholders in order to maintain their support and aligning their goals with the goals of the project ( Yang et al., 2014 ). Effective communication creates a bridge between various stakeholders involved in the project, so it plays an essential role in project stakeholder management ( Welch and Jackson, 2007 ). Because the role of communication in a project is decisive, the various communication needs in the life cycle of the project must be known and proper planning must be done for them ( Lohikoski et al., 2005 ).

Thus, the success of the project depends heavily on communication and collaboration between stakeholders, such that project managers spend most of their time communicating effectively with team members and other project stakeholders ( van den Hooff and de Ridder, 2004 ). Project managers must understand and work with different stakeholders. Therefore, it must be clearly specified how they can use communication to meet the needs and expectations of project stakeholders. Further, project managers should work out a way for identifying problem solving ( Golabchi, 2012 ). IPMA (6th edition) points out that each project has stakeholders that are affected by the project, or they can positively or negatively affect the project. Some stakeholders have little ability to influence project performance or results, and others have a special effect on the project and its expected results. Academic research is important in terms of a structured approach to identifying, prioritizing and engaging the stakeholders. The ability of project manager and project team in correctly identifying and engaging the stakeholders indicates the difference between project success and failure. Winning stakeholders' satisfaction should be recognized as one of the goals of the project. The key to stakeholders' active involvement is focusing on continuous communication with them. In IPMA (4th edition), it is suggested that communication planning be used as a method of designing a strategy for treating stakeholders. According to this edition (4th edition), cases such as why, what, when, how often, how (through communication channels) and who should communicate as well as a level of communication details are explained.

Ho (2013) finds that attitudes and beliefs should be understood as an answer to the communication. And stakeholders' perception of their role is effective in establishing communication. He also explains that formal communication mechanisms should be understood according to the organization's communication system, attitudes and beliefs, and a proper communication channel must be established.

The greater the number of stakeholder is, the more complex the communication will be, since with increasing number of stakeholders, the paths and channels of communication are further enhanced and, consequently, the complexity of communication is increased. The number of potential communication channels for N stakeholders equals N (N-1)/2, hence in projects with a large number of stakeholders, it is necessary to determine who produces and transmits information and who receives it ( Čulo and Skendrovic, 2010 ). The greater the number of people through whom the message passes, the more likely it is to distort the message. Anyone who receives a message interprets it from his/her own point of view; and after the message is received by the last person, its content is completely distorted. The use of multiple layers reduces performance in all aspects, including quality, time, cost, and communication performance and coordination ( Tam et al., 2011 ).

2.3.4. Geographical dispersion

Globalization and the free market philosophy are the forces that shape the current economy. Reduced cost of access to the Internet and communications, information technology and access to the virtual world networks encourages organizations to focus on decentralization and network structure ( Lee-Kelley, 2006 ). Organizations are in a position to use talented individuals from anywhere in the world at lower costs. Employing virtual teams for business management is an important option, as it enables organizations to overcome obstacles such as language and geography ( Lipnack and Stamps, 1999 ). In multinational projects, people from different countries with different cultures, tasks and specialized knowledge levels work together to solve strategic issues ( Adenfelt and Lagerström, 2006 ). A major challenge in project management has always been to gain coordination between activities, stakeholders and team members that may be in different cities, provinces, and countries. In project communications management processes, it is attempted to collect, store, retrieve and eventually summarize the information and knowledge generated in the project in a timely and appropriate manner and be used by different types of stakeholders. It should be noted that communication in the project is the exchange of specific project information with an emphasis on building a common understanding between sender and receiver. Based on the above reason, one should immediately consider an effective communication for the projects, since it is important for all stakeholders to strengthen their project communications management structure. More than 60 years ago, Chester Barnard stated that communication is the first stage of any implementation, and communication with employees is an important and critical skill, given their concerns, problems, ideas and suggestions about the organization. Hill et al. (2009) state that various researches suggest that geographic dispersion may hamper information sharing, coordination, problem solving, trust building, and constructive conflict resolution with others in the team. Despite of continuous advancement in communication technology, employees' geographical dispersion remains a challenge to impressive workplace interactions and, particularly, to teamwork ( Han and Beyerlein, 2016 ).

Eisenberg et al. (2019) say“ In contrast to collocated teams, in highly geographically dispersed teams, transformational leadership's influence on team communication progressively decreases as the teams become more and more dispersed”.

2.3.5. Culture

Currently, relationships are influenced by political, economic, and differences as well as different social contexts that shape people's perception of culture in international management ( Buckley et al., 2009 ). Cultural factors represent the fundamental aspect of international business management ( Sluyts et al., 2011 ). One of the main challenges for project managers is managing projects effectively in international contexts, environments in which people from different cultures and with different perspectives need to work together to achieve the project's success ( Mesly, 2015 ; Wang et al., 2016 ). IPMA (4th edition) summarizes the importance of culture and language for a modern project manager, and explains that “in a multicultural project, a person may need to guide multiple value and cultural norms in communication.” Researchers have argued that project managers should be aware of the background and culture of all international stakeholders in the project, especially customers, suppliers and partners ( Zwikael, 2009 ). Organizational culture is based on beliefs and determines the behavior of project team members ( Rubenstein-Montano et al., 2001 ). Weak communication in the project can be another result of the company's culture and may cause misunderstandings and lack of information ( Ankrah et al., 2009 ). Zakaria (2017) introduces intercultural communication as an interaction between individuals with a distinct cultural background and a distinct communication pattern. Cultural patterns alternatively affect perceptions, cognition, and actions ( Meyer, 2015 ). Culture often manifests itself in individuals' communication behaviors. Several studies show that communication behaviors vary widely between different cultures ( Cardon, 2008 ; Kittler et al., 2011 ; Warner-Søderholm, 2013 ). Differences between societies and languages affect the understanding of communication faces. Socio-cultural differences can be due to the social status of individuals, religion, state policy, financial conditions, etc. The socio-cultural difference between members with geographic dispersion can cause various communication problems and barriers ( Manoj Ray and Samuel, 2016 ). Hofstede (1984) emphasizes that a management technique or philosophy that is appropriate for a national culture is not necessarily appropriate for another.

Cultural differences often cause misunderstandings in communication. The main issue is that messages are created or encoded in a cultural context and then they are received or decoded in another cultural context ( Roudias, 2015 ). Avoiding misunderstanding and misinterpretation requires understanding not only what is said, but also how it is expressed, for example, the communication method used to create ideas, exchange views, share knowledge and express ideas ( Goettsch, 2014 ). Cultural dimensions also affect beliefs and behaviors such as trust, fear, non-involvement, non-commitment, and lack of sharing of relevant information ( Lückmann and Färber, 2016 ).

2.3.6. Skills

Organizations spend a lot of money on improving the communication skills of their employees. As an example, about 1–3 billion dollars is spent annually on promoting staff writing skills by organizations ( Guffy, 2007 ). Executive managers believe that 14% of individuals' working hours are wasting due to weakness in communications (about seven work weeks a year). That's why communication skills are considered when hiring employees and help individuals to get, perform, maintain and promote a job ( Merrier, 2005 ). To successfully manage projects, project manager must have different skills such as interpersonal skills, technical competencies, and cognitive talent and of course, along with the ability to understand the position of the people and dynamically coordinate the appropriate leadership behaviors ( Pant and Baroudi, 2008 ). In his study, Henderson (2004) acknowledges that skills of project manager and project team in communication are one of the factors that will affect the success of communication and consequently the success of the project. He conducted a study on 186 different projects and showed that communication skills of the project manager have a positive impact on the productivity and satisfaction of the project team and increases it. In his research, he investigated the skill of the project manager in encoding and decoding messages on the productivity and satisfaction of the project team and found a positive correlation between them.

Čulo and Skendrovic (2010) reports that extensive training and learning should be implemented to make sure that to make sure the proposed communication systems are consistent with the experience and expertise of the people involved in the project. ( Perumal and Bakar, 2011 ) show that conventional, written, and verbal skills are almost equally important. Welch (2015) emphasizes that internal communication requires the development of skills and knowledge of experts.

In his study, Henderson (2008) found that the competence of project managers in transferring information significantly contributes to the satisfaction and efficiency of team members. Communication is a competence and project managers can grow it to succeed; however, most project managers forget soft skills like communication, or teach it apart from other project management skills (budgeting, domain definition, or WBS creation) ( Brill et al., 2006 ). Accordingly, the authors called for the development of training programs for managers to obtain the required competencies regarding message development, negotiation and dispute resolution ( Alam et al., 2010 ; Brill et al., 2006 ).

2.3.7. Communication tools

Items including communication features, communication tools, project manager's point of view about communication habits and how to communicate with others, and identifying the project's existence philosophy for stakeholders can be considered as a group of factors influencing project communications management ( Berggreen and Kampf, 2015 ).

In addition to the temporal nature of project activities, the creation of a unique product or service is also a feature of it. This uniqueness of product or service requires a communication system that is capable of being rapidly implemented and easily used by teams of related organizations in order to share information with the least amount of training and management. The use of communication channels primarily refers to factors such as availability, skill, or ability to use or personal biases, and one can define communication channels as many as stakeholders or customers, which is very tedious ( Reed and Knight, 2013 ). Increased geographical dispersion causes challenges for the project team and stakeholders, and project managers need to exploit a wide range of tools and methods ( Furnell and Scott, 2014 ). In addition to providing a communications program that is among the main pillars of implementing, monitoring and controlling communications with stakeholders, the choice of selected tools can also be considered as of high importance ( Lee-Kelley and Sankey, 2008 ). One of the things that help to increase the effectiveness of communication is the communication tool that needs to be appropriately selected and used. The choice of appropriate communication tools depends on different factors such as audience characteristics, information transfer speed, information confidentiality, accuracy of information transfer, reliability, transmission cost, availability of communication tools, degree of formality, importance and urgency, stakeholder expectations, and duration and environment of the project ( Rai and Rai, 2014 ).

Of main barriers to communication are the type of successful communication between the receiver/sender, the message content, the nature of the message, and the message transfer tool. In order to improve the quality of communication, it is recommended that the skill of project team members in communication be enhanced, the communication program be developed and communication tools be selected according to the type of project ( Manoj Ray and Samuel, 2016 ). In an analysis of web-based document management and communication tools used by project managers, Rozman et al. (2017) showed that the way communication tools and management systems are served as motivating factors supports decision-making in teams. The authors also conducted studies on some tools for managing virtual teams, which helped to solve problems such as knowledge management, coordination, collaboration, socio-cultural distance, and lack of trust in the work team.

2.3.8. Communication variety

Communication skills are one of the most important skills required for project success. High quality communication occurs when project team members have enough time to communicate with each other and to exchange information formally or informally ( Hysa and Spalek, 2019 ). The main difference between formal and informal communications is that, unlike informal communication, formal communication occurs in a controlled environment ( Kandlousi et al., 2010 ). Formal communication has predefined structures and specified instructions and is made with predetermined persons ( Kraut et al., 1990 ), while informal communication takes place with unspecified plans and with random individuals ( Kandlousi et al., 2010 ). Informal communication does not happen at a specific date, time or place. Informal communication is formed on the basis of social relations and its purpose is rather personal, while formal communication is in the direction of the company's goals. Previous studies have shown that formal communication is positively correlated with productivity ( Litterst and Eyo, 1982 ). However, it has been proven that informal communication helps the project's productivity in the form of groups for work coordination, updating and solving minor problems ( Kandlousi et al., 2010 ). Informal communication can help increase information sharing; it can also bring about familiarity, relationships, dependencies and trust among team members ( Pullin, 2010 ). Expectations regarding formal and informal communication practices should be considered in communication planning ( Pheng, 2018 ). The result of a research showed that the combination of formal and informal communications with the goal of increasing communication, cooperation and trust among managers and other project agents improved the level of understanding in project managers, contractors and customers by 73.8, 52.9 and 81.3%, respectively ( Bond-Barnard et al., 2013 ). A significant part of the time spent by staff at the workplace is associated with communication: face-to-face communications, phone calls, emails, reports, and more. Therefore, project communications management plays a key role in organizations ( Pheng, 2018 ).

However, too many meetings are also a risk. In projects where the number of meetings is high, people work less and do not have the proper spirit to work. Lack of communication or inappropriate communication for projects that use virtual teams is riskier than those with full-time employees ( Reed and Knight, 2010 ). Communication channels are an important factor that must be controlled by the project manager. The more the number of communication channels is, the more complex the communication issues will be. A project manager should move towards formal and written communication methods ( Daim et al., 2012 ).

2.3.9. Knowledge

Communication is the transfer of information and knowledge between two or more destinations. Data consists of numbers and realities. Information about a situation or scenario and knowledge is created when information is combined with the experience gained in practical situation. Knowledge is based on personal experience of individuals and information about interpreted facts is observations and judgments. Therefore, knowledge is created from information that in turn results from data. Knowledge is responsible for the deployment of information in tangible assets ( Alavi and Leidner, 2001 ). The competencies of the project manager can include knowledge, talents, attitudes and behaviors that are required to carry out parts of the work ( Boyatzis, 1982 ).

Research has shown that due to the wrong perceptions being made in the communications by employees and stakeholders, huge amounts of money are imposed on organizations and it will also lead to reduced efficiency of the project team members. Eliminating the gap in the shared understanding between the buyer and suppliers depends on increasing knowledge ( Andersson, 2016 ). Shortage of knowledge regarding the safety and capabilities of communication media (social media) is a source of fear of using the media ( Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012 ).

2.3.10. Organizational structure and participation

The constructive aspect of communication emerges through talks and decisions of members of the organization, planning, activities and effects of the integrity of the organization's reality ( Fairhurst and Putnam, 2004 ). Several factors affect communication planning, including organizational culture and organizational structure ( Pheng, 2018 ). Organizational structure has the greatest impact on project communication requirements ( Daim et al., 2012 ). A key tool for identifying communication needs is the organizational chart that shows the hierarchy of who should report to whom ( Pheng, 2018 ). Mavuso and Agumba (2016) also considered the organizational structure and participation as factors influencing the improvement of communication management performance. As Steinheider and Al-Hawamdeh (2004) says, problems in efficient communications management, especially in large technology companies with hierarchical structure, are more evident. As project organizations grow larger and the complexity of project goals increases, effective communications management in project teams becomes more difficult ( Remidez and Jones, 2012 ). Perumal and Bakar (2011) reveal that organizational structure has a great influence on the coordination and flow of organizational systems. An appropriate organizational structure should be formed to encourage good flow of information and promote effective communication in the organization.

Pinto and Pinto (1990) found that teams that work much together, as compared to teams that work less together, are different both in terms of using informal methods for communication and in terms of reasons for communication. Griffin and Hauser (1992) observed that successful project teams largely act properly in coordination and communication, and overcome issues related to physical devices, personnel movements, and organizational structures.

2.3.11. Infrastructure

In communication planning, if there is information communication, the existing technology infrastructure should be available to facilitate the dissemination in project organizations. For example, in rural projects, internal servers and Internet access should be considered. And also, human resources suitable for production, collection, dissemination, and storage of information must be considered ( Pheng, 2018 ). Pullin (2010) believes that poor technology infrastructure is also one of the reasons that renders communication tools ineffective in some undeveloped areas.

2.3.12. Technology

The use of modern communication and information technologies can significantly reduce the cost of information transfer and have a significant impact on the effectiveness of participation and easy transfer and safety of it ( Hoffmann and Schlosser, 2001 ). Čulo and Skendrovic (2010) states that the implementation of a suitable system or technology can improve communication. In their investigation, Perumal and Bakar (2011) acknowledge that applying appropriate systems helps individuals in organizations to effectively establish their internal and external communications within the organization. Meid (2015) emphasizes that a community or company that is hiding behind technological advancement reforms will be pushed out from global economic activity. Over the last decade, Information & Communication Technology (ICT) has established collaboration platforms - hardware and software solutions that have connected people in a secure community and environment and produced useful tools for creating, organizing, researching as well as exchanging documents, information, ideas, calendars, and more, so as to be a leverage for controlling the effectiveness and efficiency of processes, and a guide to direct towards the alignment of activities with project objectives and alignment of staff goals with the strategic goals of the organization. ICT technologies offer useful solutions to enhance the coordination between processes and activities. Over the past decade, especially in office automation tools, concurrent with the popularity of the Internet and ICT development, new ways have been provided to share ideas, information and documents, so that in addition to reaching individuals and their individual details, complex projects could be managed. These collaboration platforms are called “digital platforms”, “digital spaces”, “collaboration platforms”, “group tools”, “and virtual communication”, and they have been found to be useful tools for supporting group work, especially in workgroups, virtual communication, and inter-organizational relationships ( Mancini and Ferruzzi, 2016 ). These tools that are able to share content with other employees across the organization, organize information, documents and activities for a certain individual or group, searching for information and individuals and analyzing data from multiple sources in graphical form ( van den Hooff and de Ridder, 2004 ). ICT collaboration tools include a wide range of tools such as wiki (editable blogs), cloud-based file sharing (wide row of computers connected to each other), social media, blogs, and micro blogs like Twitter. The main driver for the increasing growth of ICT common collaboration tools is to increase virtual teams of the project, with team members dispersed all over the world. Applying ICT collaboration tools, on the other hand, is rising due to increased use of ICT by external groups including customers, suppliers, universities, competitors, founders and managers of companies. Increasing access to and dissemination of new ways of communication as well as cooperation in our personal and professional lives means that ICT tools play a growing role ( Marion et al., 2016 ). Therefore, ensuring good quality communication between the project team members is crucial that makes it possible to use different social networks. This is especially important when project members are experts in different fields and in different countries. Social media can boost communications through reducing meeting duration, both online and offline environments are an integral part of project management ( Hysa and Spalek, 2019 ). Social media plays a crucial role in project activities. Social media tools help communicate with stakeholders and support dissemination of information. Therefore, increase the sustainability of results of the project ( Pivec and Maček, 2019 ).

The success of implementing IT for project communications depends on organizational culture, which can act as an obstacle or effective factor in communicating effectively. Corporate culture is an attitude belonging to the company ( Ankrah et al., 2009 ).

2.3.13. Levels of information provision and information updating

The role of communication is known as a stimulus for the success of the project, therefore its management as a strategic tool among stakeholders at all levels of a project should be considered which can bring about possible successes ( Aiyewalehinmi, 2013 ). Different stakeholders may have different expectations about the format and time of the received information. A balance between providing adequate and timely information and stakeholder needs and the formats in which the information is published should be reviewed and updated. Also, for effective communication planning, the project management information system should be considered in real time ( Pheng, 2018 ). Garbharran et al. (2012) emphasize that consideration for the transfer instructions are part of the communication, so the project perspective needs to be constantly updated and shared as the project progresses.

A common topic in studies on communication, which is one of the competencies of the project manager, is the process of transferring information to project stakeholders and also, planning is based on different and distinct requests ( Pinto and Pinto, 1990 ). In their research, they emphasize the necessary networks and information, the transfer of information and the amount of information that must flow among team members. Naqvi and Aziz (2011) inferred that project management remains effective when there is: an effective communication in managing the team, good structure information flow and time-dependent information, establishing a reporting hierarchy among team members of each project, and a formal communication framework.

3. Materials and Methods

Theoretically, communication is considered to be a very complex system that incorporates a set of interdependent elements. As a result, a model that is unable to account for these relationships cannot be appropriate for analysis.

Wu (2008) stated that the Analytical Network Process (ANP) has been used in numerous studies, but is not ideal and accurate for analyzing interactive relationships. ISM and DEMATEL methods appear to be suitable techniques for empowering hierarchical structures, and both methods provide a clear display of the relationships within the system ( Chauhan et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2018 ) In this study, we apply a hybrid Fuzzy FDEMATEL-ISM model; ISM is used to prioritize factors and DEMATEL is applied to determine the priority and intensity of quantified relationships among factors. The reason for using both approaches is that ISM only determines the level of influence of the factors on each other, and helps to identify the interrelationships among the factors, and it is an appropriate technique to analyze the impact of one factor on other factors, and it helps to prioritize and determine the level of factors in a system, but it does not quantify the intensity of interactions and relationships among the factors, a deficiency which is resolved when ISM is combined with DEMATEL. On the other hand, decision making under uncertainty is the disadvantage of DEMATEL, which can be overcome by using the Fuzzy DEMATEL technique. The Fuzzy DEMATEL method uses fuzzy linguistic variables to facilitate decision making under uncertainty. This technique is applied to the fields of production, organization management, information systems, and social sciences ( Zhou et al., 2011 ). In addition, this technique can solve all the problems faced by organizations by applying group decision making in fuzzy conditions ( Reyes et al., 2011 ). The hybrid Fuzzy ISM-DEMATEL approach provides relationships among the criteria in the best possible way ( Chuang et al., 2013 ).

Hogarth (1978) used two analytical models to examine the minimum number of experts in a judging panel. In his analysis of Cochran (1963) and Kish (1965) sampling theory, as well as Zajonc (1962) , Eysenck (1939) , and Preston (1938) theory, he concluded that the expert group should be between 6 and 25 people, depending on the correlation between their opinions and the average. The more experts are different from each other, the more numbers should be included in this combination. Ashton (1986) stated in his research that Hogarth's model offers an excellent approximation. He examined the effect of increasing experts in a statistical group. He stated that only three specialists could be added to improve the results. Einhorn and Hogarth (1977) recommended the benefits of using the average opinion of experts if they weighed the same.

Lin et al. (2016) demonstrated in the decision-making approach that even if there are a small number of experts, they would be sufficient if they had expertise with more than 10 years of experience. They considered a sample of 22 people. The number of experts in the previous studies has been at least over 10 ( Kumar et al., 2017 ; Fang et al., 2019 ; Raj and Sah, 2019 ; Wu et al., 2019 ). If the participants are homogeneous, at least a total number of 10–15 experts would be sufficient ( Asgharpour, 2010 ). The focus group of experts should comprise 12–20 experts ( Northcutt and McCoy, 2011 ).

In this study, an excel worksheet was used to carry out the DEMATEL-ISM methodology ( Singh and Bhanot, 2019 ).Steps to conduct this study are as follows:

Step 1- Identification of Factors Affecting Project Communications and Preparation of Pair-Wise Comparison Questionnaires: In this study, through reviewing the existing literature and conducting open interviews with 28 experts, the factors affecting project communications management were identified. The criteria for selecting experts were as follows: having experience in project management for more than 10 years, having an international PMI degree and willingness to participate in the research.

3.1. Face and Content Validity

To build face and content validity, after reviewing the theoretical foundations and field of study, the face and scope of the content and items for making a checklist were developed. By submitting the questionnaire to university professors in the area of industry and receiving their opinions, face validity of the questionnaire was confirmed ( Chen, 2016 ); then, to confirm the content validity of the checklist, experts in the field of project management were asked to complete the checklist; and finally, experts responded as “necessary”, “useful but not necessary” or “unnecessary” to the suitability of each item. Content validity is calculated according to Formula (1) , and given the level required for statistical significance ( p < 0.05 ), at least a value of 0.75 for each item for CVR should be obtained to be accepted ( McKenzie et al., 1999 ). Hence, content validity was confirmed.

Where, N is the total number of panels, and ne is the number of panels that responded as “necessary”. Finally, in order to determine the effective factors on communications management, 18 criteria were specified and approved by the experts. These criteria are presented in Table 2 .

Table 2

The results of validity check for each criterion.

Step 2- Formation of Pair-Wise Comparison Matrix: In pair-wise comparison matrix, indicators are compared two by two and respondents should use codes of verbal expressions. The names of these verbal phrases and their equivalent fuzzy values are shown in Table 1 .

Table 1

Verbal phrases used in the research and their equivalent values.

In the above Eq. (2) : pi represents (i)th element; dlj = (lij, mij, uij) indicates the effect of (i)th element on (j)th element; lij, mij and uij are lower, middle and upper limits of the triangular fuzzy number, respectively; and D, dlj is paired comparison matrix. After paired comparison matrix, the inconsistency rate is calculated according to Eq. (3) . And if the value of inconsistency rate is less than 5%, then the matrix of responses has good consistency ( Jeng, 2015 ).

Where, IR is consistency rate, n is the number of criteria, and ttij is the average score of the (r)th individual to the (i)th criterion relative to the (j)th criterion for 1 ≤ i ≤ n and 1 ≤ j ≤ n.

Step 3- Formation of Judgment Matrix: After the formation of paired comparison matrices, by integrating opinions using the geometric mean and with the help of Eq. (4) , we form ideal decision matrix or judgment matrix.

Where, K represents the number of experts.

Step 4- Determining the Weight of Experts: Determining the experts’ weights is based on the distance between the individual’s decision with the ideal decision, so that the closer this distance, the higher the expert’s weight ( Yue, 2012 ).

{ 1,2 , … … , t } k ∈ T and N = { 1,2 , … … , n } j ∈ N and M = { 1,2 , … .. , m } i ∈ M

If the increase of the criteria is favorable for us, it is better to use Eq. (5) , and in the case that the decrease of the criteria is desirable for us, it is better to use Eq. (6) .

Then, using Eqs. (7) and (8) , we unscal paired comparison matrix. We call the resulting matrix “ Y k ”. Afterwards, we display the average expert opinions or matrix of the ideal decision with Y∗. The more each Y k is closer to the ideal matrix, the higher the expert weight will be. We calculate the expert weight from Eqs. (9) and (10) .

Where, the weight of the (k)th expert is represented by λ k and measured from Eq. (6) .

Step 5- Multiplying the Weight of Experts in Paired Comparison Matrix

Step 6- Fuzzy DEMATEL: DEMATEL which consists of a variety of decision-making based on paired comparison is obtained through utilizing experts' judgment in extracting factors of a system and systematically constructing them by applying the principles of the Graph Theory and hierarchical structure of the factors present in the system along with mutual influential and affected relationships of the elements, in such a way as to numerically determine the intensity of the effect of these relationships and their significance.

In order to consider the opinion of all the experts, we get geometric means according to Eq. (4) .

Eqs. (11) and (12) are used to normalize the resulting matrix.

Where, r is obtained from the following equation:

After calculating the above matrices, the matrix of total fuzzy relations is obtained according to formulas (13) , (14) , (15) , (16) .

Where, each entry of that fuzzy number is represented by t ˜ ij = ( l   ij t , m   ij t , u   ij t ) and is measured as follows:

In the above equations, I is unit matrix and H l ، H m and H u are n × n matrices whose entries respectively form lower number, middle number and upper number of triangular fuzzy numbers of H matrix.

The fuzzy numbers obtained in the previous Step are defuzzified by using the Eq. (17) .

B is the defuzzified form of A ˜ = ( a 1 , a 2   , a 3 ) .

Calculating the sum of rows and columns of the matrix.

The sum of rows and columns of the matrix T is obtained by the Eqs. (18) and (19) .

In which D and R are n × 1 and 1 × n matrices respectively.

In the next stage, the importance of the indices ( D i + R i ) and the relationships among the criteria ( ( D i − R i ) are determined.

If D_i-R_i > 0, the criteria belong to the cause group, and if D_i-R_i < 0, the criteria belong to the effect group.

Step 7- Measuring Threshold Limit and Forming Accessibility Matrix:

Decision makers need to set a threshold limit for filtering minor effects. The threshold value (γ) is obtained by expert judgement or the mean of the numbers in the total influence matrix (H) ( Song et al., 2015 ).

In the above equation, l is the identity or unit matrix, and Tc is the total relation matrix.

The influence matrix (K) is obtained by the following equation:

Step 8- Determining the level of Indices: To determine the level of the criteria, two sets including Accessible or Output Set (R ei ) and Predecessor or Input Set (A ei ) are defined and then, their intersection is obtained. Thus, the accessible set for each element is a set in which rows of the final Accessibility Matrix appear as “one”. And the Predecessor Set is a set where columns appear as “one”. By obtaining the intersection of these two sets, the joint set ( R c i ∩ A ci ) will be obtained. The elements in which the joint set is the same as accessible set, take the first level of priority. By removing these elements and repeating this step for other elements, the level of all elements is determined.

Step 9- Drawing Interpretive Structural Model: The model is drawn based on the specified levels. Relationships between variables are also determined according to the Accessibility Matrix.

Step 10- MICMAC Analysis: In order to segment the criteria, the final Accessibility Matrix must be calculated for each element of driving power 1 and dependency power 2. The driving power of an element or criterion is the number of criteria that are affected by the relevant criterion, including the criterion itself. The dependency power is also the number of criteria that affect the relevant criterion and lead to its achievement. These driving and dependency powers are used in MICMAC analysis in which the criteria are divided into four groups: autonomous, dependent, hybrid and driving (independent). The purpose of the MICMAC analysis is to analyze the driving power and dependency power of the variables. The variables are divided into four clusters.

The first cluster includes autonomous criteria that have weak driving and dependency powers. These criteria are relatively separate from the system, which, in fact, has few links with other elements of the system, though their links may be strong.

The second cluster includes dependent criteria that have poor driving power but high dependency power.

In the third cluster, there are hybrid criteria with both strong driving and dependency powers. These criteria are in fact non-permanent or non-stable, because any action on these criteria will have an impact on other criteria or a feedback to itself.

The fourth cluster includes independent criteria that have high driving power with low dependency power.

As seen, a criterion with strong driving power is called a key criterion, and is in the category of independent or hybrid variables. The conceptual model of the research is shown in Figure 1 .

Conceptual model of the research.

4.1. Criteria validation

At this stage, in order to assess the content validity of the factors affecting project communication management, a questionnaire was distributed among 9 experts (PMP-certified project managers with over 15 years' experience). The results of each criterion were validated as shown in Table 2 .

ISM and DEMATEL share some similar characteristics and both investigate the cause and effect relationship among multiple criteria, so combining ISM and DEMATEL makes an effective and powerful tool that assists the decision-making group ( Mousavizade and Shakibazad, 2019 ). In this research, data collection tool was a questionnaire designed based on 18 factors influencing project communications management, which were gathered through library reviews and experts' opinions, presented in Table 3 .

Table 3

The factors influencing project communications management.

4.2. Implementation

The questionnaire was given to 22 experts and analyzed after completion by them. In this methodology, in pair-wise comparison matrix, indicators were compared two by two using codes of verbal expressions ( Table 4 ). The names of these verbal phrases and their equivalent fuzzy values are shown in Table 1 .

Table 4

Response matrix of expert 1.

4.3. Determining the Weight of Experts

Collecting opinions and formation of judgment matrix (ideal) was performed by using Eq. (3) ( Table 5 ), then the experts' weights were measured by using (4) , (5) , (6) , (7) . The weight of the experts is given in Table 6 .

Table 5

The judgment fuzzy matrix.

Table 6

Experts' weight based on milliunit.

It can be concluded based on the results that the experts were also homogeneous and, the number of experts is sufficient ( Asgharpour, 2010 ).

Fuzzy Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory technique

By applying the weight of each expert in the decision matrix by using (8) , (9) , the FDEMATEL calculations were started.

• • Forming weighted judgement matrix: After constructing the matrices of pairwise comparisons by integrating the views using the geometric mean of the comments with the Eq. (3) , the ideal decision matrix or the weighted judgment matrix is formed,

Table 7

The normalized the weighted judgement fuzzy matrix.

Table 8

The Total relation fuzzy matrix. (T).

Table 9

Defuzzied matrix of total relation matrix numbers based on centiunit (Numbers by hundredth).

Table 10

Arrangement of elements in different approaches of FDEMATEL technique.

The assumptions of FDEMATEL technique should be applied as follow to determine the relationship between factors:

• • If Di _ Rj < 0 and Di + Rj = M ( M is a large number), i is the main problem of the situation and should be solved.
• • If Di _ Rj > 0 and Di + Rj = M ( M is a large number), i solve the main problem of the situation and it should be prioritized.
• • If Di _ Rj < 0 and Di + Rj = S ( S is a small number), i is a dependent factor and affected by other factors.
• • If Di _ Rj > 0 and Di + Rj = S ( S is a small number), i is an independent factor and affects a small number of factors ( Mousavizade and Shakibazad, 2019 ).

The highest sum of rows in total relation matrix (Di) shows the order of elements that have a strong impact on other elements (the factor of Leadership) ( Table 9 ).

The highest sum of the columns (Rj) represents the order of the elements influenced (the factor of Leader ship) ( Table 9 ).

The cause group has positive Di-Rj value and other factors are in the effect group. Di + Rj , represents the sum of the intensity of an element both in terms of influencing and being influenced.

Based on the FDEMATEL results, the factors of Number of stakeholders, Organizational size, Culture, Geographical dispersion, Technology, Nationality and ethnicity and Infrastructure have the positive Di-Rj value and can be classified as the cause group, and other factors are in the effect group because the Di -Rj of these factors is negative.

Number of stakeholders and Technology solve the main problem of the situation and it should be prioritized. Nationality and ethnicity is an independent factor and affects a small number of factors. Leadership is the main problem of the situation and should be solved.

4.4. The hybrid fuzzy FDEMATEL-ISM

• • The Initial reachability matrix; the threshold limit should be calculated and the influence matrix should be formed (The threshold limit is 0.29).

The threshold value is obtained by expert judgement or the mean of the numbers in the total influence matrix ( H ) by using the (19) , (20) . The values below the threshold are of minor importance and will not be displayed.

Table 11

The Final reachability matrix.

• • Determining the level of the criteria

From the final reachability matrix, the number of 1 s in each matrix row is the accessible or output set (RC), and the number of 1 s in each matrix column is the predecessor or input set (AC). After determining the input and output sets, the intersection of the two sets is determined for each factor. Factors in which the output set and joint set are exactly the same are at the highest level of the hierarchy of the Interpretive Structural Model (as shown in Table 12 Figure 2 ). After the first repetition, the highest actions will be eliminated from others. And this will be repeated until the level of all factors is determined. In this study, 6 replications were performed as shown in Table 13 .

• - Autonomous: These are the factors with a weak driving power and a weak dependence power.
• - Dependent: These are the factors with a weak driving power but a strong dependence power.
• - Linkage: These are the factors with strong driving and dependence power.
• - Independent: These are the factors with a strong driving power but weak dependence power.

Clustering factors affecting project communications by using MICMAC analysis.

Table 12

First repetition of Interpretive Structural Modeling in order to achieve Different levels of factors affecting project communications.

Relation map based on FDEMATEL-ISM approach. Note: Due to the complexity of the relationship between the factors, only the relationships between each level with its next level are plotted. The relationship between the factors is shown in Table 11 .

Table 13

Second to sixth repetition of Interpretive Structural Modeling to achieve different levels of factors affecting project communications.

Communication Variety (C4), Technology (C7), Communication tool (C8), Skill (C9), Participation (C10), Leadership (C11), Knowledge (C12), Levels of providing information (C13) and Infrastructure (C16) have high influence and dependency are in Linkage factors of MICMAC chart ( Figure 3 ) and have highest scores of Di , Rj so any action on these variables leads to a change in other variables. The important point is that Leadership (C11), which has the highest factor of Di + Rj , Di-Rj ( Table 10 ) and most impact on other variables.

Although the Di-Rj score of Culture (C3) and Nationality and ethnicity (C15) is positive, both the Di and Rj scores are not high enough ( Table 10 ). In addition, based on the MICMAC analysis ( Figure 3 ), this factor is located among the Autonomous factors. It is obvious that these factors are an independent factor and does not have a notable impact on other factors.

Moreover, based on the analysis of Di- Rj values in FDEMATEL, trust (C14) is listed as effect group and have tendency to be easily impacted by others (The effects in Table 11 are significant in the C14 column).

The results of MCMAC analysis ( Figure 3 ) confirm that Geographical dispersion (C6), Number of stakeholders (C1) and Organizational size (C2) are independent factors, but Technology (C7) is classified in linkage factors.

Further examination reveals that C7 is located close to the border between independent and linkage factors. As shown in Table 10 , their impact factor ( Di ) are relatively high. This factor has a high impact on other factors, and it must be properly classified as independent group.

After determining the level of all the factors affecting communications project, the results are depicted in Figure 3 . As seen in Figure 2 , Geographical dispersion at Level 6 and the Organization's size at Level 5 have the highest effect on other factors. The levels of Providing communication, Leadership, Knowledge, Information updating and Implementation of the communication plan are located at Level 1, which indicate that these factors are affected by other factors.

Based on the above results, the following recommendations are provided for implementation communication management in project:

• • Geographical distribution is the fundamental aspect of the model and should be considered in planning. This finding is supported by other studies such as Hill et al. (2009) .
• • Organizational size is an affecting factor and its importance is almost equal to Geographical dispersion, so it is worth much more attention.

If project managers are working in large organizations, they need to pay close attention to communication planning and complexity in order to avoid failure.

• • Project managers should always consider the number of their stakeholders and communication variety (formal or informal). At this stage, the use of technology with environmental facilities and infrastructure is recommended to meet the project stakeholders' communication and information needs. This is important in gaining the trust of stakeholders.
• • Because leadership has the most impact on the other variables, it is suggested to project managers to use situational leadership according to the type of project, number of stakeholders and other influencing factors.

It should be noted that these findings are supported by other studies such as Steyn (2012) and Zulch (2014) , van den Hooff and de Ridder (2004) ; Hill et al. (2009) ; Čulo and Skendrovic (2010) ; Tam et al. (2011) ; Bond-Barnard et al. (2013) ; Pheng (2018) ; Hysa and Spalek (2019) ; Perumal and Bakar (2011) ; Marion et al. (2016) and Pivec and Maček (2019) .

5. Discussion and conclusions

Studies show that the number of failed projects is on the rise. Despite the fact that the number of project managers has increased significantly, what causes projects to fail? Various factors have been studied and analyzed, including the distribution of project teams and the complexity of communication networks that differ by the nature of the projects. Project managers are required to improve this process and reduce the number of failed projects, which is possible through establishing effective communication in projects. Communication planning, based on the association of effective factors with each other, really helps us establish better communication among stakeholders, especially in complex projects in different geographical regions. In fact, the establishment of a good communication strategy will specifically increase the likelihood of a successful project.

We know that each project has its own environment and conditions, and each industry has its own particular conditions to be considered. Every day, lots of information should be exchanged in projects, but the basic approach to communication requirements is essentially the same. Therefore, the informed communication strategy allows us to structure the information flow in a better and more controlled manner and to avoid the costs caused by lack of effective and timely communication. Managers should know that the budgets allocated to establishing communication are used to improve or change the most effective factors, respectively, so that they could reduce the costs of project failures as well as the costs of losing the resources and interests of the organization.

For this purpose, this study was conducted to help clarify the views of the organization's managers and project managers on project communications, and to identify factors affecting it. According to the experts' opinions, library studies and validation of factors by the experts, 18 main factors were confirmed and selected. Then, a hybrid of Fuzzy DEMATEL-ISM was used to analyze the relationships between them and presenting a structural model for them. According to the analyses, geographical dispersion has the greatest impact on factors influencing project communications. It was found by using MICMAC analysis that the number of stakeholders and size of the organization is the most important factor among factors affecting project communications. Therefore, in projects where different parts of the project are located in different geographical locations or where the number of project stakeholders is high, more attention should be paid to linkage and dependent factors associated with these factors.

The factors “information updating, implementing the communication plan, and organizational structure” are affected by linkage factors. Focus should be on the effective linkage factors including leadership, knowledge, levels of providing information, communication variety, technology, infrastructure, variety of communication tools, participation (engagement), and skills and improving them. Among these linkage factors, according to Figure 2 , communication variety is at the third level, so it has a greater impact on other factors. Next are infrastructure and technology - factors that are at the fourth level, affecting levels 5 and 6, and require more investment and attention. However, the most influential and affected factor is leadership (driving power = 16, dependency power = 18), which needs to gain the highest attention. Next are levels of information provision, knowledge, and participation (engagement), which will also require attention and care in communication planning.

However, the factors “trust, nationality, ethnicity and culture” are autonomous, meaning that they have low driving and dependency power and perhaps it is not necessary that the project manager concentrate on these factors in designing his project plan as compared to other factors.

This research can provide a new insight regarding the nature of the factor affecting the project communications in power plant, oil and gas megaprojects in Iran. Given the main logic of the method used, which is method for analyzing the system, factors that have the most impact on other factors are identified as the most important factors, and dependent factors must be considered by managers and policy makers to be improved by other factors, including the organization's policies in the geographical dispersion of different project sectors and the number of project stakeholders.

Also, special attention should be given to leadership as the highest influential (effective) and affected (influenced) factor. In order to improve leadership, it is necessary to sufficiently invest in the required skills and knowledge of project managers.

Project communication has a great influence on the success of the project. Considerable consideration and investment should be given to the factors affecting project communications and their effects on each other in order to have a positive impact on project communications and project success. Enhanced knowledge of project managers on the effect of these factors during project communications planning can be very efficient and prevent the loss of time and cost. Since no importance weights were obtained for the factors in this study, it is suggested that a combination of this method with a weighting method like Analytic Network Process (ANP) or weighting with prioritization like DANP method, etc. be used.

We can also examine the structural relations of the present model with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. It should be noted that the implementation of each of the factors is likely to have many barriers and conflicts. Researchers can investigate these problems in future studies. The first limitation that can be stated is the number of criteria that can be greater than this number and also the results should be evaluated using larger samples across a variety of organizations and countries.

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

M. Khalilzadeh: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data.

H. Shakeri: Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

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Communications management in the success of projects. Case study: Provincial university

F Y Hernández 1 , R P Ramírez 1 and R I Laguado 1

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd Journal of Physics: Conference Series , Volume 1388 , 5th International Week of Science, Technology & Innovation 20 November 2018, San José de Cúcuta, Colombia Citation F Y Hernández et al 2019 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1388 012048 DOI 10.1088/1742-6596/1388/1/012048

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1 Grupo de Investigación en Innovación y Gestión Productiva GIINGPRO, Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander, San José de Cúcuta, Colombia

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The communication project is a key factor to achieve good results in the development of a project; this includes the processes of planning, collecting, creating, storing, controlling and distributing information in a timely manner. In this context, the general objective of the research was to evaluate the communications management for the success of projects in a provincial university. In the first instance, communications assessment at the institutional level is carried out, the type of requirements and the use of communication methods are determined and then a communications plan is proposed. The type of research is descriptive, where a series of variables are selected, each of them are measured independently in order to describe them. As a result of the research, those involved in carrying out the projects were identified, it was obtained that the management of communications ensures a better distribution of information at all levels of the institution, in addition, the design of the communications plan allows the information to be transmitted efficiently and assertively.

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Exploring Project Management Case Studies: A Comprehensive Guide

• January 25, 2024

Project management has become an essential skill for organizations to achieve their goals efficiently. By effectively managing projects, businesses can streamline processes, improve productivity, and ultimately drive success. To understand the intricacies of project management, it is crucial to explore various case studies that offer real-life insights into successful project management practices. This comprehensive guide aims to provide a deep dive into project management, highlighting key principles, methodologies, and the role of a project manager.

Understanding the Basics of Project Management

Project management is a crucial discipline that involves the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities. Its primary goal is to meet specific project requirements by carefully planning, executing, controlling, and closing projects within defined constraints. These constraints typically include factors such as time, cost, and scope. By effectively managing these elements, project managers aim to achieve predetermined objectives while ensuring efficient resource utilization.

Defining Project Management

At its core, project management is a multifaceted process that requires a comprehensive understanding of various project elements. It encompasses the coordination of tasks, resources, and stakeholders to achieve project goals. By employing proven methodologies and strategies , project managers can effectively navigate the complexities of project execution.

Successful project management involves breaking down complex projects into manageable tasks, establishing clear project objectives, and developing a well-defined project plan . This plan serves as a roadmap for the project, outlining the necessary steps, timelines, and deliverables. By having a solid plan in place, project managers can effectively allocate resources, manage risks, and monitor progress throughout the project lifecycle.

Key Principles of Project Management

Project management is guided by a set of key principles that serve as the foundation for successful project execution. These principles include:

• Clear Project Objectives: Clearly defining project objectives is essential for project success. By having well-defined goals, project managers can align project activities and ensure that everyone is working towards a common purpose.
• Effective Communication: Communication is a critical aspect of project management. Project managers must establish open lines of communication with stakeholders, team members, and other relevant parties to ensure that information flows smoothly and that everyone is kept informed about project progress.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle is vital. By involving stakeholders in decision-making processes and keeping them informed, project managers can gain valuable insights and ensure that project outcomes meet stakeholder expectations.
• Risk Management: Identifying and managing risks is an integral part of project management. Project managers must proactively assess potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate them. By addressing risks early on, project managers can minimize their impact on project outcomes.
• Continuous Improvement: Project management is an iterative process that requires continuous improvement . Project managers should regularly evaluate project performance, identify areas for improvement, and implement corrective actions. By embracing a culture of continuous improvement, project managers can enhance project outcomes and drive organizational success.

The Role of a Project Manager

A project manager plays a pivotal role in the success of any project. They are responsible for planning, organizing, and overseeing all project activities. Key responsibilities of a project manager include:

• Planning: Project managers develop comprehensive project plans that outline the necessary tasks, timelines, and resources required for successful project execution. They establish project objectives, define deliverables, and allocate resources accordingly.
• Team Management: Project managers are responsible for assembling and managing project teams. They assign tasks, provide guidance, and ensure that team members have the necessary resources and support to complete their work effectively.
• Communication: Project managers serve as the primary point of contact for all project-related communication. They facilitate effective communication between team members , stakeholders, and other relevant parties to ensure that everyone is aligned and informed.
• Decision-making: Project managers make critical decisions throughout the project lifecycle. They analyze information, evaluate options, and make informed choices that align with project objectives and stakeholder expectations.
• Monitoring and Control: Project managers continuously monitor project progress, track performance against established metrics, and implement necessary control measures. They identify deviations from the plan and take corrective actions to keep the project on track.

By fulfilling these roles and responsibilities, project managers act as leaders, decision-makers, and facilitators. They work closely with stakeholders to ensure that project goals are met, deliverables are achieved, and project outcomes align with organizational objectives.

The Importance of Project Management

Project management plays a crucial role in the success of organizations. It is a discipline that involves planning, organizing, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals and objectives. Effective project management ensures that projects are executed efficiently, meeting the desired outcomes while staying within the allocated budget and time frame.

Benefits of Effective Project Management

Effective project management offers numerous benefits to organizations. Firstly, it enhances collaboration among team members. By establishing clear roles and responsibilities, project managers facilitate effective communication and coordination, ensuring that everyone is working towards a common goal. This collaboration fosters innovation, creativity, and synergy among team members, leading to higher productivity and better outcomes.

Furthermore, effective project management promotes efficient resource allocation . Project managers carefully analyze the project requirements and allocate resources, such as manpower, equipment, and materials, in the most optimal way. This ensures that resources are utilized effectively, minimizing waste and maximizing productivity. By efficiently managing resources, organizations can achieve cost savings and improve their overall operational efficiency.

In addition, effective project management minimizes risks. Project managers identify potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate them. They create contingency plans and establish risk management processes to address any unforeseen events or challenges that may arise during the project. By proactively managing risks, organizations can minimize disruptions, avoid costly mistakes, and ensure the successful completion of projects.

Moreover, effective project management enables effective decision-making. Project managers gather relevant data, analyze information, and make informed decisions based on the project’s objectives and constraints. They consider various factors, such as cost, quality, and time, to make decisions that align with the organization’s overall strategy. This ensures that projects are executed in a way that maximizes value and achieves the desired outcomes.

Lastly, effective project management ensures projects are completed on time and within budget. Project managers develop detailed project plans, set realistic timelines, and monitor progress to ensure that projects stay on track . They closely monitor project costs and implement cost control measures to prevent budget overruns. By delivering projects on time and within budget, organizations can enhance customer satisfaction, build trust, and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

Consequences of Poor Project Management

Scope creep.

On the other hand, poor project management can have severe consequences for organizations. When project management is not effectively implemented, it can result in scope creep. Scope creep refers to the continuous expansion of project requirements beyond the initial scope, leading to increased costs, delays, and a loss of focus. This can strain relationships with stakeholders, as their expectations may not be met, and can ultimately lead to project failure.

Budget overruns

Poor project management can also result in budget overruns. Without proper planning and control, projects can exceed their allocated budgets, causing financial strain on the organization. This can lead to reduced profitability, cash flow issues, and potential financial losses. Additionally, budget overruns can negatively impact the organization’s reputation, as stakeholders may view the organization as inefficient or unreliable.

Missed deadlines

Missed deadlines are another consequence of poor project management. When projects are not effectively managed, timelines may not be realistic or properly monitored. This can lead to delays in project completion, causing frustration among stakeholders and potentially impacting the organization’s ability to deliver products or services on time. Missed deadlines can also result in missed business opportunities, as competitors may gain an advantage by delivering similar projects more efficiently.

Strain relationships with stakeholders

Furthermore, poor project management can strain relationships with stakeholders. When projects are not effectively communicated or managed, stakeholders may feel excluded or uninformed. This can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and a lack of trust in the organization’s ability to execute projects successfully. Strained relationships can have long-term consequences, as stakeholders may choose to disengage from future projects or seek alternative partnerships.

Damage a company’s reputation

Ultimately, failed projects can damage a company’s reputation. When projects fail to meet their objectives, it can erode customer confidence and trust in the organization’s ability to deliver on its promises. This can result in a loss of business opportunities, as potential customers may choose to work with competitors who have a track record of successful project execution. Additionally, failed projects can demoralize employees and create a negative work environment, impacting overall organizational performance.

In conclusion, effective project management is vital for organizations to achieve their goals and objectives. It offers numerous benefits, including enhanced collaboration, efficient resource allocation, risk mitigation, effective decision-making, and timely project completion. On the other hand, poor project management can have severe consequences, such as scope creep, budget overruns, missed deadlines, strained relationships, and damage to the organization’s reputation. Therefore, organizations should prioritize investing in project management practices and ensure they have skilled project managers who can effectively lead and execute projects.

Diving into Project Management Processes

Initiation phase.

In the initiation phase, project managers work closely with stakeholders to define project objectives and analyze feasibility. This phase involves identifying the project scope, clarifying deliverables, and assembling the project team. It sets the stage for the successful execution of the project.

Planning Phase

The planning phase is a critical stage where project managers develop a detailed roadmap for project execution. It involves defining project activities, estimating resources and timelines, identifying risks, and developing contingency plans. Effective planning ensures all project stakeholders have a clear understanding of project requirements and paves the way for seamless execution.

Execution Phase

In the execution phase, project plans are put into action. Project managers coordinate and oversee the project team, allocate resources, and monitor progress. Effective communication and collaboration are crucial during this phase to address any issues that may arise and keep the project on track.

Closure Phase

The closure phase signifies the completion of the project. Project managers conduct a final review to ensure all deliverables have been met, obtain stakeholder feedback, and document lessons learned. This phase allows organizations to celebrate successes, evaluate performance, and gather valuable insights for future projects.

Project Management Methodologies

Waterfall methodology.

The waterfall methodology is a linear approach to project management, where tasks are completed sequentially. It involves distinct phases, with one phase starting only after the previous one is finished. This methodology is ideal for projects with well-defined requirements and limited changes expected throughout the project lifecycle.

Agile Methodology

The agile methodology is an iterative and flexible approach to project management. It emphasizes adaptability, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Agile projects are divided into short iterations called sprints, with frequent feedback loops, allowing for rapid adjustments and enhancements as the project progresses.

Hybrid Methodology

The hybrid methodology combines elements of both waterfall and agile methodologies. It allows project managers to tailor their approach based on project requirements and complexity. A hybrid approach offers the flexibility of agile methodologies while still incorporating structured planning and control from the waterfall model.

By delving into project management case studies, we can uncover valuable insights and lessons from successful projects. Understanding the basics of project management, recognizing its importance, and following established processes and methodologies sets the stage for achieving project goals efficiently. Whether you choose a traditional waterfall approach, an agile methodology, or a hybrid model, the key to project management success lies in effective leadership, collaboration, and adaptability.

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Effective Strategies for Communication Management in a Project Management Environment

Department of Engineering, Hofstra University, Hempstead, USA

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International Journal of Applied Logistics

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of using strategic approaches for managing communication in projects, especially for top-level managers and lower-level employees. The gap of communication could be resolved by implementing strategic approaches of communication management, so as to include all personnel in the organization. According to Neves and Eisenberger (2012), the literature of communication management has stated that it is a key factor for success. Furthermore, Ramsing (2009) claimed that in recent years, most project managers have different educational backgrounds, but they also have limited backgrounds in communication management. To overcome this problem, the authors will state the most effective strategies for managers to utilize for communication in a project. They believe that the there are four most effective strategies, which are the PMI communication strategy, the six main steps of communication strategy, understanding the direction of communication, and choosing the right communication channel.

Index Terms

Human-centered computing

Social and professional topics

Professional topics

Computing and business

Management of computing and information systems

Project and people management

Project management techniques

Project staffing

Software and its engineering

Software creation and management

Collaboration in software development

Programming teams

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Case Studies in Strategic Communication

An online, peer-reviewed, open access journal.

Case Studies in Strategic Communication (CSSC) is dedicated to the study of strategic communication through the case study form. Case studies illustrate the strategies, tactics, and execution of communication campaigns through in-depth coverage of a single situation. CSSC is a peer-reviewed online publication housed at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

Case studies have long been central to the study of strategic communication, but these cases have been scattered across textbooks and websites, are quickly outdated, are not fully representative of the many facets of strategic communication, and lack a common format useful for teachers and scholars. Through the ongoing publication of strategic communication case studies online, CSSC aims to develop a living resource of diverse case materials for teachers, scholars, and practitioners.

As technological convergence and industry trends demand the integration of several branches of strategic communication in everyday practice, it is necessary to consider the approach to strategic communication holistically. Thus, CSSC welcomes case studies dealing with any number of the following disciplines: public relations, marketing, advertising, integrated marketing communication, social media campaigns, crisis communication, special events planning, development and fundraising, internal or employee communication, investor relations, community relations, media relations, online community management, publicity, and more.

There is no limit to topical coverage, and CSSC hopes to develop a resource that touches on as many industries, tactics, geographic regions, and diverse populations as possible. CSSC seeks case studies concerning all sectors, too: private companies (large and small), publicly traded corporations, non-profit organizations (large and small), political campaigns, government agencies (local and national), and educational institutions.

In addition to success stories, CSSC also seeks case studies that explore failures, shortcomings, missed opportunities, and crises. Stories of failure are not often told in case study collections, but they sometimes yield the best lessons.

CSSC was launched in 2011 at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism & Mass Communication, began publishing case studies in 2012, and moved to USC Annenberg in 2013.

USC Annenberg Press is committed to excellence in communication scholarship, journalism, media research, and application. To advance this goal, we edit and publish prominent scholarly publications that are both innovative and influential, and that chart new courses in their respective fields of study. Annenberg Press is among the first to deliver journal content online free of charge, and devoted to the wide dissemination of its content. Annenberg Press continues to offer scholars and readers a forum that meets the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1. WHAT IS TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION?

1.4 Case Study: The Cost of Poor Communication

No one knows exactly how much poor communication costs business, industry and government each year, but estimates suggest billions.  In fact, a recent estimate claims that the cost in the U.S. alone are close to $4 billion annually! [1] Poorly-worded or inefficient emails, careless reading or listening to instructions, documents that go unread due to poor design, hastily presenting inaccurate information, sloppy proofreading — all of these examples result in inevitable costs. The problem is that these costs aren’t usually included on the corporate balance sheet at the end of each year; if they are not properly or clearly defined, the problems remain unsolved.

You may have seen the Project Management Tree Cartoon before ( Figure 1.4.1 ); it has been used and adapted widely to illustrate the perils of poor communication during a project.

The waste caused by imprecisely worded regulations or instructions, confusing emails, long-winded memos, ambiguously written contracts, and other examples of poor communication is not as easily identified as the losses caused by a bridge collapse or a flood. But the losses are just as real—in reduced productivity, inefficiency, and lost business. In more personal terms, the losses are measured in wasted time, work, money, and ultimately, professional recognition. In extreme cases, losses can be measured in property damage, injuries, and even deaths.

The following “case studies” show how poor communications can have real world costs and consequences. For example, consider the “ Comma Quirk ” in the Rogers Contract that cost $2 million. [3]   A small error in spelling a company name cost £8.8 million. [4]   Examine Edward Tufte’s discussion of the failed PowerPoint presentation that attempted to prevent the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. [5] The failure of project managers and engineers to communicate effectively resulted in the deadly Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. [6]   The case studies below offer a few more examples that might be less extreme, but much more common.

In small groups, examine each “case” and determine the following:

• Define the rhetorical situation : Who is communicating to whom about what, how, and why? What was the goal of the communication in each case?
• Identify the communication error (poor task or audience analysis? Use of inappropriate language or style? Poor organization or formatting of information? Other?)
• Explain what costs/losses were incurred by this problem.
• Identify possible solution s or strategies that would have prevented the problem, and what benefits would be derived from implementing solutions or preventing the problem.

Present your findings in a brief, informal presentation to the class.

Exercises adapted from T.M Georges’ Analytical Writing for Science and Technology. [7]

CASE 1: The promising chemist who buried his results

Bruce, a research chemist for a major petro-chemical company, wrote a dense report about some new compounds he had synthesized in the laboratory from oil-refining by-products. The bulk of the report consisted of tables listing their chemical and physical properties, diagrams of their molecular structure, chemical formulas and data from toxicity tests. Buried at the end of the report was a casual speculation that one of the compounds might be a particularly safe and effective insecticide.

Seven years later, the same oil company launched a major research program to find more effective but environmentally safe insecticides. After six months of research, someone uncovered Bruce’s report and his toxicity tests. A few hours of further testing confirmed that one of Bruce’s compounds was the safe, economical insecticide they had been looking for.

Bruce had since left the company, because he felt that the importance of his research was not being appreciated.

CASE 2: The rejected current regulator proposal

The Acme Electric Company worked day and night to develop a new current regulator designed to cut the electric power consumption in aluminum plants by 35%. They knew that, although the competition was fierce, their regulator could be produced more affordably, was more reliable, and worked more efficiently than the competitors’ products.

The owner, eager to capture the market, personally but somewhat hastily put together a 120-page proposal to the three major aluminum manufacturers, recommending that the new Acme regulators be installed at all company plants.

She devoted the first 87 pages of the proposal to the mathematical theory and engineering design behind his new regulator, and the next 32 to descriptions of the new assembly line she planned to set up to produce regulators quickly. Buried in an appendix were the test results that compared her regulator’s performance with present models, and a poorly drawn graph showed the potential cost savings over 3 years.

The proposals did not receive any response. Acme Electric didn’t get the contracts, despite having the best product. Six months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.

CASE 3: The instruction manual the scared customers away

As one of the first to enter the field of office automation, Sagatec Software, Inc. had built a reputation for designing high-quality and user-friendly database and accounting programs for business and industry. When they decided to enter the word-processing market, their engineers designed an effective, versatile, and powerful program that Sagatec felt sure would outperform any competitor.

To be sure that their new word-processing program was accurately documented, Sagatec asked the senior program designer to supervise writing the instruction manual. The result was a thorough, accurate and precise description of every detail of the program’s operation.

When Sagatec began marketing its new word processor, cries for help flooded in from office workers who were so confused by the massive manual that they couldn’t even find out how to get started. Then several business journals reviewed the program and judged it “too complicated” and “difficult to learn.” After an impressive start, sales of the new word processing program plummeted.

Sagatec eventually put out a new, clearly written training guide that led new users step by step through introductory exercises and told them how to find commands quickly. But the rewrite cost Sagatec $350,000, a year’s lead in the market, and its reputation for producing easy-to-use business software.

CASE 4: One garbled memo – 26 baffled phone calls

Joanne supervised 36 professionals in 6 city libraries. To cut the costs of unnecessary overtime, she issued this one-sentence memo to her staff:

After the 36 copies were sent out, Joanne’s office received 26 phone calls asking what the memo meant. What the 10 people who didn’t call about the memo thought is uncertain. It took a week to clarify the new policy.

CASE 5: Big science — Little rhetoric

The following excerpt is from Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, [8] itself both a plea for and an excellent example of clear scientific communication:

The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) would have been the preeminent instrument on the planet for probing the fine structure of matter and the nature of the early Universe. Its price tag was $10 to $15 billion. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993 after about $2 billion had been spent — a worst of both worlds outcome. But this debate was not, I think, mainly about declining interest in the support of science. Few in Congress understood what modern high-energy accelerators are for. They are not for weapons. They have no practical applications. They are for something that is, worrisomely from the point of view of many, called “the theory of everything.” Explanations that involve entities called quarks, charm, flavor, color, etc., sound as if physicists are being cute. The whole thing has an aura, in the view of at least some Congresspeople I’ve talked to, of “nerds gone wild” — which I suppose is an uncharitable way of describing curiosity-based science. No one asked to pay for this had the foggiest idea of what a Higgs boson is. I’ve read some of the material intended to justify the SSC. At the very end, some of it wasn’t too bad, but there was nothing that really addressed what the project was about on a level accessible to bright but skeptical non-physicists. If physicists are asking for 10 or 15 billion dollars to build a machine that has no practical value, at the very least they should make an extremely serious effort, with dazzling graphics, metaphors, and capable use of the English language, to justify their proposal. More than financial mismanagement, budgetary constraints, and political incompetence, I think this is the key to the failure of the SSC.

CASE 6: The co-op student who mixed up genres

Chris was simultaneously enrolled in a university writing course and working as a co-op student at the Widget Manufacturing plant. As part of his co-op work experience, Chris shadowed his supervisor/mentor on a safety inspection of the plant, and was asked to write up the results of the inspection in a compliance memo . In the same week, Chris’s writing instructor assigned the class to write a narrative essay based on some personal experience. Chris, trying to be efficient, thought that the plant visit experience could provide the basis for his essay assignment as well.

He wrote the essay first, because he was used to writing essays and was pretty good at it. He had never even seen a compliance memo, much less written one, so was not as confident about that task. He began the essay like this:

On June 1, 2018, I conducted a safety audit of the Widget Manufacturing plant in New City. The purpose of the audit was to ensure that all processes and activities in the plant adhere to safety and handling rules and policies outlined in the Workplace Safety Handbook and relevant government regulations. I was escorted on a 3-hour tour of the facility by…

Chris finished the essay and submitted it to his writing instructor. He then revised the essay slightly, keeping the introduction the same, and submitted it to his co-op supervisor. He “aced” the essay, getting an A grade, but his supervisor told him that the report was unacceptable and would have to be rewritten – especially the beginning, which should have clearly indicated whether or not the plant was in compliance with safety regulations. Chris was aghast! He had never heard of putting the “conclusion” at the beginning . He missed the company softball game that Saturday so he could rewrite the report to the satisfaction of his supervisor.

• J. Bernoff, "Bad writing costs business billions," Daily Beast , Oct. 16, 2016 [Online]. Available:  https://www.thedailybeast.com/bad-writing-costs-businesses-billions?ref=scroll ↵
• J. Reiter, "The 'Project Cartoon' root cause," Medium, 2 July 2019. Available: https://medium.com/@thx2001r/the-project-cartoon-root-cause-5e82e404ec8a ↵
• G. Robertson, “Comma quirk irks Rogers,” Globe and Mail , Aug. 6, 2006 [Online]. Available: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/comma-quirk-irks-rogers/article1101686/ ↵
• “The £8.8m typo: How one mistake killed a family business,” (28 Jan. 2015). The Guardian [online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2015/jan/28/typo-how-one-mistake-killed-a-family-business-taylor-and-sons ↵
• E. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint , 2001 [Online]. Available: https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/tufte-powerpoint.pdf ↵
• C. McFadden, "Understanding the tragic Hyatt Regency walkway collapse," Interesting Engineering , July 4, 2017 [Online]: https://interestingengineering.com/understanding-hyatt-regency-walkway-collapse ↵
• T.M. Goerges (1996), Analytical Writing for Science and Technology [Online], Available: https://www.scribd.com/document/96822930/Analytical-Writing ↵
• C. Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, New York, NY: Random House, 1995. ↵

Technical Writing Essentials Copyright © 2019 by Suzan Last is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Strategy Execution for Public Leadership

Implement a public leadership approach for long-term success..

Join Harvard Kennedy School faculty and former Pentagon Chief of Staff Eric Rosenbach to learn how to develop strategies for public leadership success.

What You'll Learn

How do you execute a strategic initiative that has a long-lasting impact? Do you know how to effectively communicate your strategic approach, gathering input and support from key stakeholders? How will you anticipate and respond to scrutiny from shareholders, news media, and the public?

Leaders in government, non-profit, and education organizations face unique challenges when it comes to making strategic, business-oriented decisions. If not thoroughly planned and executed, these decisions have real consequences with high-stakes outcomes. What can we learn from world leaders and experts who have faced these monumental decisions? How can you build a high performing team to successfully execute strategic ideas?

In Strategy Execution for Public Leadership, former United States Pentagon Chief of Staff and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security Eric Rosenbach will lead you through real-life public sector challenges, showing you how a purpose-driven strategy execution framework can lead to long-term adoption and success.

This government and nonprofit leadership training online course offers the opportunity to study decisions of key public leaders, like Former United States Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, so you can better understand how to develop strategies that not only align with your organizational goals, but also gain insight into the challenges and scrutiny that come along with making public decisions. Too often, public strategies fail because leaders don’t think about execution, which is made up of leadership and management tools, as well as a team who anticipates all scenarios prior to putting your plan into place. 

Through global case studies and protagonist examples, you will explore topics that set you on a path to strengthen your public leadership skills, including leadership and team development, resource and budget planning, talent recruitment and retention, strategic communications and crisis management, and risk planning and mitigation tactics.

By the end of this leadership development course, you will not only have the tools to create a sound public strategy, but also know how to test and optimize your strategy, increase competitive advantage, and sustain long-term impact and success.

Strategy is not one-size-fits-all. Implement a public leadership approach for long-term success.

The course will be delivered via  HBS Online’s course platform  and immerse learners in real-world examples from experts at industry-leading organizations. By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Enhance your strategic thinking by understanding the core elements of public leadership, management, strategy, and execution
• Develop the skills to institute strategic models that align with your goals and your stakeholders
• Prepare to lead your organization to long-term success through a shared understanding of strategic direction
• Create a culture of consistency, both internally and externally, that considers core objectives, resources, and environmental factors  
• Know how to approach strategy both effectively and efficiently, incorporating feedback cycles and creating public value
• Identify weaknesses and risks, developing the skills and planning to respond in a crisis
• Develop strategic communications to effectively roll out new initiatives and anticipate shareholder and media feedback

Your Instructor

Eric Rosenbach is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and is the Director of the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Rosenbach teaches graduate courses in policy development, strategy execution, and national security.  As Pentagon Chief of Staff from 2015–2017, Rosenbach led and managed the execution of dozens of high-profile strategic initiatives for the largest public sector organization in the world.  As Assistant Secretary of Defense, Rosenbach was responsible for developing and executing the strategy for all aspects of the Department’s cyber activities and other key areas of defense policy. In the private sector, he led the cybersecurity practice of a global management consulting firm, advising the executives of Fortune 500 companies on strategic risk mitigation strategies.

Real World Case Studies

Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.

Leadership is a valuable skill that can be cultivated and strengthened.  Hear from the Executive Director of The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas to discover what it takes to become an effective leader at any level.

Communication errors are often cited as the primary reason that initiatives fail. Learn the best strategies for effective communications and media relations from a former United States Secretary of Defense.

Juliette Kayyem

Risk prevention and mitigation is everyone’s responsibility. Explore how to assess and mitigate risks by learning about international events, including the Ebola Endemic, BP Oil Spill, and more.

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Learners who have enrolled in at least one qualifying Harvard Online program hosted on the HBS Online platform are eligible to receive a 30% discount on this course, regardless of completion or certificate status in the first purchased program. Past Participant Discounts are automatically applied to the Program Fee upon time of payment.  Learn more here .

Learners who have earned a verified certificate for a HarvardX course hosted on the  edX platform  are eligible to receive a 30% discount on this course using a discount code. Discounts are not available after you've submitted payment, so if you think you are eligible for a discount on a registration, please check your email for a code or contact us .

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Who Will Benefit

Public Sector Leaders

Local, state, and national government leaders will benefit by better understanding the core principles of public sector strategy formulation and execution.

Government Administrators

Military, defense, local, state, and federal officials, learn the the business fundamentals of strategy, including competitive analysis, stakeholder identification, and feedback.

Rising Managers

Focused on rising leaders who will benefit from understanding how public sector strategy and execution serves a unique purpose, and can serve as the eyes and ears on the ground to enhance adoption and strategy optimization.

Learner Experience

“My goal for taking the course was to better understand public program decision making. The course was thoughtfully developed and gave me the opportunity to better understand the public leadership perspective. I would recommend this course to individuals wanting a career in public leadership.”

Rob Arnold Executive Director Health Commons Project

Syllabus and Upcoming Calendars

This public leadership training course will help executives, managers, and rising managers in the nonprofit, government, and education sectors develop and implement actionable plans and strategies that will have a lasting impact on their organizations and communities they serve. 

Online Course requirements: There are no prerequisites needed to take this online course. In order to earn a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Online, participants must thoughtfully complete all 8 modules, including satisfactory completion of the associated quizzes, by stated deadlines.

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• Prepare for this strategy execution training course for public sector leaders and rising leaders
• Understand why strategy execution is important in the public sector
• Overview of the course
• Study a case on Women in the U.S. Military
• Formulate an effective strategy to tackle any problem or opportunity and achieve your intended goals
• Learn how to use environmental scan tools like SWOT and PESTEL
• Study a case on the German Refugee Crisis
• Plan and manage your initiative’s operations to increase performance and productivity
• Learn to generate an activity list using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Study a case on healthcare.gov
• Assess and use financial and technological tools to responsibly manage resources and maintain public trust
• Practice generating cost estimate, calculating burn rates, and comparing waterfall and agile methodologies
• Study a case on Equitable Transportation for Houston
• Learn how to strengthen your leadership skills by understanding the styles and traits of an effective leader
• Identify leadership styles and reflect on your own
• Revisit the case study on Women in the U.S. Military
• Communicate your ideas purposefully and persuasively to garner necessary support and commitment
• Learn communications strategies that align with your audience and purpose and compare the uses and roles of different communication channels
• Study the case on the Ebola Endemic in Liberia
• Assess risks and craft ways to mitigate them so that they do not derail your efforts
• Assess risks using an Impact-Probability Matrix
• Learn to match mitigation strategies to risks to create a contingency plan
• Evaluate your initiative to understand your level of impact and how to improve in the future
• Identify key aspects of the Logical Framework planning tool and learn to compare the Logical Framework planning tool to a Performance Management Plan

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Case Studies in Strategic Communication

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Top 20 Project Management Case Studies [With Examples]

Project management case study analyses showcase and compare real-life project management processes and systems scenarios. These studies shed light on the common challenges that project managers encounter on a daily basis. This helps project managers develop effective strategies, overcome obstacles, and achieve successful results. 

By leveraging project management case studies , organisations can optimise their operations by providing insights into the most effective approaches. With effective implementation of these case studies, strategies, and methodologies, ensuring successful project completion is achievable.

Criteria for Selection of Top 20 Case Studies

The top 20 case studies are selected based on significance, impact, challenges, project management strategies, and overall success. They provide diverse insights and lessons for project managers and organisations.

1. The Sydney Opera House Project

The Sydney Opera House Project is an iconic example of project management case studies as it faced multiple challenges during its construction phase. Despite facing leadership changes, budget overruns, and design failures, the project persevered and was completed in 1973, a decade later than planned. The Opera House stands as a symbol of perseverance and successful project management in the face of humankind.

2. The Airbus A380 Project

The Airbus A380 Project is a project management case study showcasing the challenges encountered during developing and producing the world’s largest commercial aircraft. The project experienced massive delays and impacted costs of more than $6 billion, with several issues arising from the manufacturing and delivery process, outsourcing, and project coordination. 

However, the Airbus A380 was successfully launched through carefully planned project management strategies, delivering a world-class aircraft that met customer expectations.

3. The Panama Canal Expansion Project 

The Panama Canal Expansion Project serves as a compelling case study, illustrating the management’s encounters in expanding the capacity of the Panama Canal. The project included multiple stakeholders, technological innovations, environmental concerns, and safety challenges. 

4. The Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project

The Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project serves as a project management case study of a large-scale underground tunnel construction project. It successfully addressed traffic congestion and was completed in 2007. The project was completed in 2007, with numerous hurdles delaying progress like complexity, technology failure, ballooning budgets, media scrutiny, etc.

5. The London 2012 Olympics Project

The London 2012 Olympics Project stands as a successful project management case study, showcasing the management of a large-scale international sporting event. This project involved the construction of a new sports infrastructure, event logistics and security concerns. The project was successfully accomplished, delivering a world-class event that captivated the audience.

6. The Hoover Dam Bypass Project

The Hoover Dam Bypass Project was a construction project in the United States of America that intended to alleviate traffic from the Hoover Dam by building a new bridge. Completed in 2010, the bridge spans across the Colorado River, connecting Arizona and Nevada and offers a safer and more efficient route for motorists.

7. The Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Project

The Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Project is a case study example constructed in San Francisco, California. Its objective was to enhance the bridge’s resilience against earthquakes and aftershocks. Completed in 2012, the project included the installation of shock absorbers and other seismic upgrades to ensure the bridge’s safety and functionality in the event of a major earthquake.

8. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge Project

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge Project is a massive case study that intends to connect Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau with a bridge-tunnel system of 55 kilometres. Completed in 2018, the project required massive funds, investments and innovative engineering solutions, providing a new transport link and boosting regional connectivity.

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9. The Panama Papers Investigation Project

The Panama Papers Investigation Project is a global case study of journalistic investigations into offshore tax havens. It involved leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm. Coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the project resulted in major political and financial repercussions worldwide, garnering widespread media attention.

10. The Apple iPhone Development Project

The Apple iPhone Development Project started in 2004, aiming to create a groundbreaking mobile device. In 2007, the iPhone transformed the industry with its innovative touchscreen interface, sleek design, and advanced features. This project involved significant research, development, marketing, and supply chain management investments.

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11. The Ford Pinto Design and Launch Project

The Ford Pinto Design and Launch Project was a developmental project intended to create an affordable, fuel-efficient subcompact car. Launched in 1971, because of its fuel tank design, it became infamous for safety issues. The project was rigged for ethical and safety concerns, lawsuits, and recalls.

12. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response Project

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response Project was a response to the largest oil spill in US history, caused by an offshore drilling rig explosion in 2010. This crisis response project utilised a waterfall project management approach, where the project team followed a pattern of planning, executing, monitoring, and closing phases. 

13. The NASA Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster Project

  The NASA Challenger Disaster Project was a tragic space exploration mission in 1986, resulting in the loss of all seven crew members. Extensive investigations revealed design and safety flaws as the cause. This disaster prompted NASA to address decision-making processes and improve safety cultures.

14. The Three Gorges Dam Project

  The Three Gorges Dam Project was a large-scale infrastructure project developed in China that aimed to build the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Yangtze River. Completed in 2012, it encountered environmental, social, and engineering challenges. The dam currently offers power generation, flood control, and improved navigation, but it has also resulted in ecological and cultural consequences.

15. The Big Dig Project in Boston

The Big Dig Project was a transportation infrastructure project in Boston, Massachusetts, intended to replace an old elevated highway with a newer tunnel system. Completed in 2007, it serves as one of the most complex and costly construction endeavours in US history. Despite facing many delays, cost overruns and engineering challenges, the project successfully improved traffic flow and urban aesthetics but also resulted in accidents, lawsuits, and financial burdens.

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16. The Uber Disruptive Business Model Project

  The Uber Disruptive Business Model Project was a startup that introduced a new ride business model that disrupted the taxi-cab industry by connecting riders with drivers via a mobile app. Launched in 2010, this project required innovative technology, marketing and regulatory strategies and faced legal actions and ethical challenges related to labour, safety, and competition. Uber has since then dominated the market with its ride-sharing business plan.

17. The Netflix Original Content Development Project

The Netflix Original Content Development Project was an initiative created to launch its original content for its platform. This launch by the online streaming giant in 2012 was a huge success for the company. The project required huge investments in content creation, distribution and marketing and resulted in award-winning shows and films that redefined the entire entertainment industry’s business model.

18. The Tesla Electric Car Project

The Tesla Electric Car Project was a revolutionary project that aimed to compete for its electric vehicles with gasoline-powered vehicles. The project required a strong project management plan that incorporated innovation, sustainability, and stakeholder engagement, resulting in the successful launch of the Tesla Roadster in 2008 and subsequent models. Tesla has one-handedly revolutionised the entire automobile industry on its own. 

19. The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Crisis Management Project:

The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Crisis Management Project was a case study in crisis management in 1982. The project required quick and effective decision-making skills, stakeholder communication, and ethical leadership in response to the tampering of Tylenol capsules that led to deaths. 

20. The Airbnb Online Marketplace Platform Project  

The Airbnb Online Marketplace Platform Project was a startup that created an online platform which connected travellers with hosts offering short-term rental accommodations in flights. The project required innovative technology, user experience design and stakeholder management. Airbnb’s success has led to the disruption of the hospitality industry and inspired many other project case study examples of sharing economy platforms.

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Future Developments in Project Management

Future developments in project management include all the insights on the increased use of artificial intelligence, agile methodologies, hybrid project management approaches, and emphasis on sustainability and social responsibility, along with many more developing ideas that will address the evolving market innovations. 

Key Takeaways from the Case Studies

The project management case study examples illustrate real-life examples and the importance of project management in achieving project success. The cases show the use of innovative technologies, tools, techniques, stakeholder engagement, crisis management, and agile methodologies. 

Project Management also highlights the role of ethical leadership and social responsibility in project management. To learn more and more about case studies, upGrad, India’s leading education platform, has offered an Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad that will equip you with in-demand management skills to keep up with the changing trends!

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Project Management is extensive planning, executing, monitoring and closing of a project before its deadline. Project management ensures accuracy and efficiency across all organs of a project, right from its inception to its completion.

Project Management case studies are real-life examples of projects to put an insight into all the tools, techniques and methodologies it provides.

The role of a project manager is to ensure that all day-to-day responsibilities are being met by the resources deployed in a certain project. They have the authority to manage as well as lead the functioning members as well.

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A Plan to Protect Critical Infrastructure from 21st Century Threats

By Jen Easterly, Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

On April 30 th , the White House released  National Security Memorandum-22 (NSM) on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience , which updates national policy on how the U.S. government protects and secures critical infrastructure from cyber and all-hazard threats. NSM-22 recognizes the changed risk landscape over the past decade and leverages the enhanced authorities of federal departments and agencies to implement a new risk management cycle that prioritizes collaborating with partners to identify and mitigate sector, cross-sector, and nationally significant risk. The culmination of this cycle is the creation of the 2025 National Infrastructure Risk Management Plan (National Plan)—updating and replacing the  2013 National Infrastructure Protection Plan —and will guide federal efforts to secure and protect critical infrastructure over the coming years. 

As the National Coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will develop this National Plan to be forward-looking and employ all available federal tools, resources, and authorities to manage and reduce national-level risks, including those cascading across critical infrastructure sectors. CISA will look to its partners to help us and the other Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMAs) over the course of the year as we develop this foundational document. 

The National Plan Must Account for the Evolution of Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Consequences 

Building off the priorities of NSM-22, the 2025 National Plan will articulate how the U.S. government will collaborate with partners to identify and manage national risk. This will be an evolution from the 2013 National Plan which described risk management as “the cornerstone” to strengthening critical infrastructure security and resilience. Eleven years later, the spirit of this concept holds true; yet it must evolve due to pervasive vulnerabilities and an elevated threat landscape, which could lead to cascading regional and national consequences. Fortunately, over that same decade, Congress and successive administrations have established new agencies, authorities, and collaborative partnerships that empower a whole-of-society approach to national risk management. As the National Coordinator, CISA will be the primary driver for operationalizing this approach through the National Plan. 

The National Plan will be Informed by a New Risk Management Cycle

NSM-22 details a new risk management cycle that requires SRMAs to identify, assess, and prioritize risk within their respective sectors and develop sector risk management plans to address those risks. With these risk assessments and risk management plans, CISA will identify and prioritize systemic, cross-sector, and nationally significant risk through a cross-sector risk assessment. This assessment will enable CISA to prioritize systemic risk reduction efforts—detailed in the National Plan—that the U.S. government will take in collaboration with relevant federal, state and local, private, and international partners. Most importantly, the National Plan will recognize that the U.S. government cannot make all critical infrastructure immune from all threats and hazards. Rather, it will detail U.S. government efforts to make critical infrastructure resilient against prioritized risks based on the 16 sector’s risk assessments and CISA’s cross-sector risk assessments. All the while, CISA and other federal partners will work closely with SRMAs to manage their unique sector risks.  

We Need You for Us to be Successful 

This will be a fundamentally new approach to U.S. government risk management. In this era of technological advancements and dynamic global volatility, the security and resilience of our critical infrastructure are of paramount importance. Essential systems, including energy grids, water systems, transportation networks, healthcare facilities, and communication systems, are vital for public safety, economic stability, and national security. The increasing interconnectivity of critical infrastructure systems, reliance upon global technologies and supply chains, and geopolitical tensions make these systems susceptible to a myriad of threats. Addressing these risks will require a coordinated national effort by federal agencies; State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial (SLTT) governments, infrastructure owners and operators, and other stakeholders across the critical infrastructure community. 

As those responsible for the security and resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure, we must collectively address emergent risks and an uncertain future while remaining vigilant against longstanding threats like terrorism, natural disasters, and targeted violence. Indeed, trusted, sustained, and effective partnerships between the federal government and private-sector and SLTT partners is the foundation of our collective effort to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure. 

Put simply, the 2025 National Plan will not succeed unless our partners collaborate with us to inform its development and its eventual implementation. We ask that you work with your respective SRMAs through the development of your sector risk assessments and sector risk management plans, as these will be core inputs into the National Plan. You can also contact us at  [email protected] for any of your ideas. These inputs will be invaluable as we develop a plan that allows the U.S. government to better prioritize our risk mitigation efforts and reduce risk for the critical infrastructure that underpin American society. 

For more information on the NSM-22 and CISA’s role as National Coordinator, visit CISA National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience | CISA .

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